Apparent Prodigy
by Spiffymustardseed
Summary: "Look, Harry.  Sometimes girls like other girls, and boys like other boys, and that's called being gay. And there's nothing wrong with it, you're just a little different."  John has to explain something that's hard to teach to a 10 year old girl.  Fluff!


**AN: I found that there weren't enough Harry/John fluff stories on here. So it had to happen.**

**Enjoy my first Sherlock fanfiction! Please leave a review below!**

**Disclaimer: It's not mine. If it was, we'd have a season 3 right now.**

I knew the second that I heard the door slam that something was awfully, terribly wrong.

Harry didn't slam. She shouted, she groaned, and she spouted curse words and general abuse until her sentences dissolved into a mash of gibberish, but she never slammed a door.

Which was a good thing, too. Mum was constantly ill with headaches and such, and as I got out from school two hours earlier than Harry, I was always the one to take care of her. I wouldn't dream of complaining- Mum never whined or sulked about, but stayed cheerful, and often told me that if I didn't go into a medical position with my 'apparent prodigy', she would come back from the grave to haunt me for the rest of my life. It led to no surprise when I rushed to my mother's room to make sure that the slam hadn't worsened her migraine- she had paled a bit, but she waved me off with a quick flick of her fragile wrist.

I clenched my jaw in anger at Harry's carelessness, preparing to give her a harsh talking to, when I heard the door behind me- to mum's bedroom!- slam shut, a reverberating echo launching itself around the walls of both the room and my skull. Whipping around, I was stopped dead in my tracks when, rather than the furious face that Harry usually wore when she was in this mood, a tearful sister. Her cheeks were nearly raw from tears, her sniffles gradually growing more and more grotesque as her sobs worsened. Harry was not a pretty crier, to say the least. Even at slight tears, her entire face would turn a furious shade of magenta, any and all wrinkles on her petite face worsening to those of an eighty year old man.

To avoid her crying waking mum again (and maybe because I felt a little bad), I swept her up into my arms and carried her to the kitchen. She was light for the age of ten, and I was stocky at 15- carrying her was nearly effortless.

I carefully set her down on a stool, went to get her a glass of milk and a plate of the fresh cookies that the maid had cooked, quickly took a deep breath to apply my 'stern-but-caring-older-brother' mask, and walked back towards Harry. She had already thrown her bookbag across the tile.

"Look, Harry, you know that Mum's sick, you can't just slam doors like that! She's got migraines, you might-"

"Is there something different about me?"

Caught off guard, I scanned her face and body quickly, searching for anything different as I swiped a snickerdoodle from her small platter. "No, not that I can tell. You look the same. Aside from the tears, I mean."

"No, I mean, about me. As a person."

I frowned. Harry had always been a bit of a tomboy, even if she did love dolls and the occasional princess dress. Her hair was short, her knees bashed from falling and kneeling on terrain unwelcoming to her soft skin, and she usually had a bucket or cage filled with miscellaneous creatures hidden in her closet. But this was normal behavior- many girls her age were like this, I knew, especially her friends. "No. No, there's nothing wrong, or- or different about you."

Her lips formed a small 'o', and she quickly grabbed a chocolate chip cookie and the glass of milk, dunking and eating in our rather heavy silence. I was sorely tempted to ask her what had happened, but I knew Harry, and Harry did not take well to questioning.

"I kissed a girl. At school today."

Sure I had heard her wrong, I froze. "What?"

"I kissed Abby. And she kissed me back, too."

"Wh- Abby?"

"Yes. I liked her, so I kissed her. But then Mrs. Malkerson saw us and yelled at me."

"You?"

"Yes. She yelled at Abby too, though. Then she smacked us with a ruler."

I stared at her incredulously. I wasn't sure which information to attempt to absorb first- the fact that my sister and her sweet little friend Abby were lesbians, the fact that the teacher had yelled at her for kissing a girl, or the fact that the teacher had smacked them with a ruler.

I went with the lesbian part.

"Why did you kiss her?"

"Well, I liked her. So I told her. And she said she liked me back, so I kissed her."

"Wait, liked? Or like liked?"

"Like liked."

"Bloody hell…" I ran a hand through my rapidly lightening brown hair. I had no idea how to respond to this situation.

"So, is there something wrong with that?"

I looked up. "What would make you think that?"

"Well, Mrs. Malkerson told me that I wasn't allowed to kiss another girl. Ever. She said it was a sin."

"No- no. There's nothing wrong with you."

"But then why should it be a sin?"

I looked at her, wondering how I was supposed to tell my 10 year old sister that sometimes girls liked other girls, and that they were called lesbians, and that there was far too much prejudice in the world for people to just accept gays and lesbians.

"Look, Harry. Sometimes girls like other girls, and boys like other boys, and that's called being gay. And there's nothing wrong with it, you're just a little different. It's like you have blond curls, and I have straight brown hair, and we're not really that different at all, are we?"

"But why-"

"Sometimes, Harry, you just have to deal with people like Mrs. Malkerson in the real world. And they won't ever understand, nor will they ever try to. They'll take all of their anger and frustration and meanness out on you, and you know what's the best way to deal with them?"

"What?"

"To pretend you don't hear them, and to know that you, Harriet Watson, are a more caring, kind, and accepting individual than they will ever be."

She started to smile then, and I simply picked her up and hugged her.

"You're a beautiful girl, Harry. Don't anyone ever tell you different."

"Love you, Johnny."

"I love you too."


End file.
